


it keeps raining in your heart

by duCOQUELICOT



Series: Zutara Week 2020 [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Major character death - Freeform, New Avatar, Rebirth, after the war, azula's redemption, refuge in the watertribe, they lost the war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duCOQUELICOT/pseuds/duCOQUELICOT
Summary: The unthinkable has happened. Aang hasn't survived his battle with Phoenix King Ozai, and Zuko and Katara have to flee the Fire Nation palace in a hurry. The world is barren, and the future is uncertain. Will they find the new Avatar before the Fire Nation does? Will they ever be reunited with their friends and family? And what will they do about Azula, whom Zuko, despite everything, couldn't leave behind?
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Zutara Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1850281
Comments: 16
Kudos: 56
Collections: Zutara Week 2020





	it keeps raining in your heart

**Author's Note:**

> **the world was on fire and no one could save me but you  
>  it's strange what desire will make foolish people do  
> I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you  
> and I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you  
>   
> \-- Chris Isaak**

She keeps scanning the horizon, waiting for a sign.

They're still on the courtyard. Katara has her hand in the small of Zuko's back, as if her fingers are the only thing that prevent him from collapsing.

Perhaps, in some way, they are.

He groans. 

"Do you see anything yet?" 

"No..." she begins to say, but then she halts. _Something_ is coming towards them, a lonely figure. Could it be?

But soon her hope turns into dread when she realizes what she's looking at. 

Phoenix King Ozai, blasting through the sky, holding in his arms a body that could only belong to one person.

_No._

_No._

_It can't be._

_It's not possible._

Only then she hears herself screaming.

"What is it?" Zuko asks, bewildered as she lets go of him, sinks down to the ground, unable to make herself stop wailing. He tilts his head upwards, and reality dawns upon him.

"Katara, we have to go. Now. Now!" He shakes her arm, teeth gritted through the pain that she wasn't able to completely heal away. But she's like a ragdoll in his hands, dead weight. He can't push her back up on her feet no matter how hard he tries.

"Katara!" 

He keeps yelling her name but she doesn't hear him, at least, she does, but she can't respond. She can't do anything. There, high up in the sky, her friend has died. Her hero. Her hope. 

It's only when Ozai starts his descent that she wakes up from her trance and life returns to her muscles. She scrambles back on her feet, but she doesn't want to run - she wants to fight, fight this man with every inch of her being, all the pain and trauma she has inside her. She will turn it against him and unleash her powers in a way he has never seen before. She will -

"Come _on_!" 

Zuko yanks her away.

"Let go of me! I'm going to kill him!" 

"Are you insane? You'll never win!"

"I don't _care_! He killed _Aang_!" 

She's crying and screaming and stomping her feet on the ground.

"I'm not going to stand here and watch you die!" 

"Fine, then leave! I don't need you anyway!"

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she regrets them. 

"Wait, I didn't mean that, I -"

"No time for apologies, either. Let's just go. He'll be here any minute now." Zuko casts a worried glance over her shoulder. 

She knows he's right. But the thought of abandoning her friend, leaving him in the hands of that _monster_ … 

Zuko makes a run for it, and at long last, so does she.

They're almost out of the palace when he stops dead in his tracks and looks at her with a face as white as a sheet of parchment paper. 

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"Azula," is his only word.

"Oh no, we're not taking her with us." She folds her arms in front of her chest and frowns so deep she can almost see her own eyebrows.

"I can't leave her there. She's my _sister_."

Katara can't argue with that. 

* * *

Which means that about an hour later, they're halfway through the woods. Zuko is carrying his sister, whose hands Katara has encapsulated in a block of ice. She worries what impact the extended cold will have on Azula's nerves. 

She might have worried more if Azula would have stopped screaming for a second.

"What have you done? Put me down! Did father come back? He'll burn your face to ashes if he finds out what you did, Zuzu. He'll burn you _and_ your little watertribe peasant..."

Zuko tears a piece of cloth from his tunic. He drapes it around Azula's mouth and pulls, so that the cloth is in between her lips, preventing her from speaking.

"I'm sorry," he says matter-of-factly. "I just can't stand listening to you right now."

He winces. Katara runs towards him, but he fends her off.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me. You already did more than enough."

"Once we find some water, I want to heal you again," she warns him. "I definitely need some more sessions. And I doubt the scar is ever going away."

He barks. "My scar is the least of our worries right now."

She bites her lip. She wants to get mad again, to yell at Zuko until he is deaf or she is out of breath. She wants to run back and tear the whole palace down. She wants to grab Aang from Ozai's clutches and hold him to her face, breathe the life back into him.

Katara knows she wouldn't make it out alive, but she doesn't care. She doesn't care about anything anymore. Everything she hoped for, everything she believed in, has been burned to metal and dust. 

She clenches her fists, another outcry pushing against her teeth, waiting to be released. 

"Why aren't you more angry?" she finally bursts out, directing it all at Zuko. He doesn't deserve this, but she can't help it. He's the only one here with her. He'll have to bear the brunt. 

"What is it with you?" she continues. "Why aren't you screaming and crying? Why didn't you want to stand and fight, even if we'd die? Why did you make me leave?"

A vein pulses near his forehead, but he doesn't say anything. Katara just gets more riled up, jumping up and down on her feet.

"Talk to me! Or are you too afraid to admit what you're _really_ thinking?"

"Katara..." 

He draws out the last syllable of her name. It's a warning, but she ignores it.

"Did you do all this because you don't care about what happens to us after all? Is that it?"

Zuko stops and puts Azula down. He walks toward Katara, and she sees him coming and thinks: _now he's going to scream at me, or worse_ \- and she raises her fists above her head to defend herself -

He grabs both her arms and holds her. 

She smacks her fists against his chest and sobs. 

Zuko wraps himself around her. She breathes in the scent of his clothes. They smell like a forest fire.

He doesn't let go. Neither does she.

When her breathing has returned to normal, she wipes the tears from her face. Her skin is sticky and dirty, and she only now notices the abrasions on the palms of her hands. 

"Are you okay?" he whispers with a raspy voice. Katara nods. She doesn't trust her vocal chords yet.

"I promise you," Zuko says and looks her in the eyes, "I promise you that we're going back for him. But we _had_ to get out. We have to find the others."

"The others..." she chews on the inside of her cheeks. Where could they be? Her dad, Sokka, Toph, Suki… 

Katara is struck with a sudden terror. In all her selfish worrying, she completely forgot about her family, her other friends, her tribe. Immediately, her heart rate goes up, racing in her throat. 

"We have to find them," she mumbles.

"We do," he nods. "The only problem is, I have no idea where to go, or who to look for first."

Then, another realization. 

"If Aang is..." Katara can't say it out loud. "He's the Avatar. He'll be reborn. He'll be reborn in the Water Tribe."

She starts speaking faster as a sliver of hope creeps back into her consciousness.

"We have to go back to the South Pole. Or the North Pole. We have to make sure this baby is safe. Zuko, we have to-"

He holds onto her arm again and squeezes.

"We will. I promise, we will. But the South Pole is far from here, and we have no way to get there..."

In front of them, trees come falling down with alarming speed. Zuko and Katara jump up, into a fighting stance, although they're both shaking on their legs.

Katara is the first to connect the dots.

"Appa!" 

She runs forward, hugs the enormous bison that comes stomping out of the woods. He is unharmed, although he is covered in ashes.

"We left him behind!" Zuko realizes aloud and blushes. "Appa, I'm so sorry-" 

The bison roars and sticks out his tongue to lick Zuko. 

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Katara is still holding on to his fur, the fur that smells like Aang. Tears well up in her eyes for the umpteenth time, but she just lets them flow.

Zuko picks up Azula again, who, if looks could kill, would have committed a massacre by now.

They climb into the saddle. Appa shivers, stretches his legs. 

"Yip yip," Katara whispers. Her lips are cracked.

As the sky bison sleighs into the sky, she wonders what, if anything, they'll find beyond the horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaand we're ending on some Angst because I am a sucker for good angst. If you want me to continue, let me know!


End file.
